De lo real a lo imaginario. Aproximación a la flora ibérica durante la Edad del Hierro

Abstract

“From the real to the imagery” is the translation of the project’s title we present in this paper. Our main goal is the study of the Iberian Iron Age flora from several points of view in order to come close to the use and the simbolism of plants among the ancient societies, specially the Iberian Culture. The method we use is a combination of a paleobotanical approach, based on palinology, anthracology and paleocarpology, together with an iconographic one. Then, we record all the representations of plants on pottery, stone sculpture, metallic objects and coins. All these data are catalogued taking in to account the context and chronology of the archaeological remains we are dealing with. The aim of this research project is to create a database of the used and known plants among the Iberians, to reconstruct the possible uses (“the real”) and the images of plants represented on the artefacts (“the imagery”). This paper offers preliminary results of our method by presenting an analytical example based on two species: the poppy (Papaver sp.) and the palm tree (Phoenix datylifera L.).